Marriage, finances & credit cards

[KarenAylwood]

I'm getting married next September (so yes, we have a year to plan/figure this out but I'm a planner ). DF and I are planning on combining our finances. We have pretty similar ideas about money and know eachothers spending habits so I'm not too worried about that (although I'm not naiive enough to think the whole thing will be totally conflict-free).

We both have a good number of credit cards- two of which we both have the same card. His credit is low and mine is high so my limits are higher than his. When we get married we'll likely make those joint cards- so the question is, do we cancel his and put him on mine (since my limit is higher)? Or will cancelling the cards make his credit lower? Or will it even matter since his credit is already low and this is a good opportunity to clean up our card collection? Or the other option is to keep his open and just cut up the cards.

I'd like to clean up our little collection since we both have a few that we use fairly frequently (me 6 and him 3). If I add him to mine, that will increase his available credit so would it even matter if we closed his with smaller limits?

[note: we use a lot of different ones bc of the rewards we get or that they're store cards- all are paid in full every month and there is never a balance on them. Also two of my 6 cards are my mom's that I don't personally charge on, and one is a store card that can't be used elsewhere. One is a costco card that I have so I don't have to use cash/debit at costco.]

Any advice from the credit experts?

 

[neatokimmo]

Federal law prohibits new joint accounts for CCs. I'd just keep them separate, don't add auth users or anything.

 

[Swimalie]

The biggest piece of financial advice I was given when I got married was to keep my own credit card and bank account, use them every once in a while and keep my own credit going. A woman, especially, needs to do this in case anything ever happens and you find yourself on your own. My husband and I had the same USAA mastercard when we got married 15 years ago. We still have separate accounts. I kept mine. My mother in law never had her own bank accounts nor credit cards and when her husband died she couldn't get her own credit since she didn't have her own history. When she called some companies to say her husband, the primary account holder, had died, they cancelled her account since she didn't have a history. Don't let this happen. Keep your own bank account (even if it's $100) and credit card to keep your credit alive.

 

[janey99]

To help yourself answer that question (and not necessarily to open up for discussion here!), ask why, if you both have pretty similar ideas about money, his credit is low and yours is high?

Did he have a catastrophic event beyond his control that ruined his credit, or are your shared values only a recent development, with a chance that he could backslide into old habits and drag your credit with him?

 

[msmayor]

Federal law prohibits new joint accounts for CCs. I'd just keep them separate, don't add auth users or anything.

Do you have a citation on that? I hadn't seen that anywhere.

 

[scrapquitler]

The biggest piece of financial advice I was given when I got married was to keep my own credit card and bank account, use them every once in a while and keep my own credit going. .

I got that advice, too. And DH and I have a mixture of credit cards: one that its MINE, one that is HIS and one that is a joint account.



OP, everything I've read says that if you are going to close some cards and keep others, your credit rating will take the least hit if you cancel the newest cards and keep the oldest ones. Apparently the older cards look 'better' on your credit rating than newer ones.

 

[neatokimmo]

Do you have a citation on that? I hadn't seen that anywhere.

Its because of the USA Patriot Act.

 

[Swimalie]

Its because of the USA Patriot Act.

Hm.. I'll have to ask my husband about this one. He should know, or can ask around the office since he works in the federal money laundering division under the Patriot Act. He's in training today.

 

[*pixie*dust*]

Federal law prohibits new joint accounts for CCs. I'd just keep them separate, don't add auth users or anything.

I work for a financial institution. We grant joint CCs everyday. I think you may have some misunderstanding of the new changes to CCs.

 

[Gigi22]

Do not, repeat not, get joint credit cards. You stand to lose your good individual credit if you do so. My mother had no credit in her own name just added cards on my dad's credit card accounts, when my dad died, his credit died too--it was a huge mess.

Also, you only need two credit cards each. So now is a good time to pare them down. Get rid of all the store credit cards as a priority, their interest charges tend to be the highest.

 

[ICF]

I would try to consolidate.

There is no harm in each of you having a CC in just your own names, but I'd consolidate as many as you could and put him under your account # if the limits are higher.

 

[RooRach0906]

The biggest piece of financial advice I was given when I got married was to keep my own credit card and bank account, use them every once in a while and keep my own credit going.

I got that advice, too. And DH and I have a mixture of credit cards: one that its MINE, one that is HIS and one that is a joint account.

We do the same here. We even each have our own bank accounts and a joint bank account.
For our seperate bank accounts tho, we have each other on as surviors so if something were to happen the other would get the money in the account.

 

[Swimalie]

Do not, repeat not, get joint credit cards. You stand to lose your good individual credit if you do so. My mother had no credit in her own name just added cards on my dad's credit card accounts, when my dad died, his credit died too--it was a huge mess.

Also, you only need two credit cards each. So now is a good time to pare them down. Get rid of all the store credit cards as a priority, their interest charges tend to be the highest.

You can still get joint accounts. I have 1 with my husband. But keep an individual one as well. I do agree that all you need are 2 cards.

 

[ICF]

Also, you only need two credit cards each. So now is a good time to pare them down. Get rid of all the store credit cards as a priority, their interest charges tend to be the highest.

She said she pays in full each month, so the interest rate is irrelevant.

Besides, store cards tend to give discounts in many cases to ONLY those people that have them, so cancelling them would cost them that benefit.

 

[Soben]

You should both keep a couple of cards in each of your names. But if you have excessive #s of cards that you don't want floating out there, you can cancel them slowly over time. They will ding your score, but it's temporary. Keep the ones that you've had the longest.

 

[VAN]

I don't think you need to worry about your credit rating too much right now UNLESS either of you are planning to take out a loan. If you will be needing a loan in the near future, you will want to carefully research what will happen to your credit score based on how you proceed.

 

[mistysue]

I think it's probably a good idea to have fewer than 9 total, maybe you should each keep your 2 oldest cards? Then if you have a single account that you both just want to charge more often (the one with the best rewards maybe) you could add the other as an authorized user and both primarily use a single card.

If his credit limits are lower, is part of his lower score just that his balances are a high % of his available credit?

Just an extra note, if you want advice - When DH and I got married 2 years ago, we quickly figured out that it made the most sense for one of us to figure out how much could be spent on the card and in cash in the month and give the other a budget. Since I was more excited about doing it, I tell him what our budget is so that he doesn't go over. When at first both of us tried to do the budget, both of us would have some detail in the back of our mind that we forgot to mention, and every month there was an issue with somebody running out of money for something they needed. Now he tells me in advance how much he expects travel to cost- or if there is some work thing coming up, rather than just springing it on our budget the week before. You might also want to sort of determine who is watching the budget ahead of time and keep it posted somewhere the other can review it at any time. (we use a spreadsheet) In retrospect, it would have been nice to really see each other's concept of their budget before merging accounts.

 

[brergnat]

There is no law prohibiting joint accounts. If a card offers you to add an "authorized user", that is a joint account, essentially.

What you cannot do is have the account under more than one name. One person has to be the designated "Primary" account holder, but a secondary user still "counts", as in, THAT person's credit report will show that card on it.

OP, if you will both be working, the best solution is to keep your current checking account, and he keeps his. You can open a JOINT account for the purposes of paying bills and spending of everyday items (groceries, etc.) You and your DH will decide how much each will put into the account (to be FAIR, you should contribute 50% of your income, and he should contribute 50% of his income). This account will serve for all "joint" expenses. And, when you go to apply for a loan or something, it will be useful to have a joint checking account.

DH and I have all our accounts "joint". I don't work, so there is no reason for me to have a separate account. Most banks these days require a monthly deposit of a minimum $ amount to keep an account open. I handle all the finances because he is military and often away from home. He has total knowledge of all our money, how much we have, how much we owe, etc.

I, personally, disagree with the advice to keep ALL your banking separate when you get married. You are getting MARRIED after all, and you will be sharing everything else too. Sharing a bank account just makes sense. I honestly feel that couples who do not do so have *some* distrust with each other, or an inkling that their relationship might not last. To me, it seems sad to have separate accounts. It's like you are setting yourself up for the end of your marriage.

If you have misgivings about someone financially, then maybe getting married might not be the best idea. Analyze why his credit is bad. Make sure it's not something that can mess up your life...

 

[Saraheg2107]

We are getting married in roughly 2 weeks, we each have our own checking account, but, we also have a joint checking/savings account. We each also have our own credit card and each have 1 that has the other person on it (so a total of 4 cards). What we *did* do, is sit down and decide exactly what the joint account is to be used for and what the personal ones are to be used for (for example, if I want to have a girls night out with some friends I use my personal checking, not our joint checking to pay for it).

 

[scrapquitler]

Its because of the USA Patriot Act.

I've been googling, and can't find anything at all that says this.